Once we have tasted far streams, touched the gold, found…

People wander about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread.

— William Stafford

Anyone who breathes is in the rhythm business.

— William Stafford

I don't see writing as a communication of something already discovered, as "truths" already known. Rather, I see writing as a job of experiment.…

— William Stafford

An owl sound wandered along the road with me. I didn't hear it--I breathed it into my ears.

— William Stafford

The Way It Is There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you…

— William Stafford

It's love,' they say. You touch the right one and a whole half of the universe wakes up, a new half.

— William Stafford

“We think it is calm here, or that our storm is the right size.”

— William Stafford

“There may be losses too great to understand That rove after you and--faint and terrible-- rip unknown through your hand.”

— William Stafford

It is as if the ordinary language we use every day has a hidden set of signals, a kind of secret code.

— William Stafford

My question is "when did other people give up the idea of being a poet?" You know, when we are kids we make up…

— William Stafford

The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying the things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing…

— William Stafford

“I am your own way of looking at things," she said. "When you allow me to live with you, every glance at the world…

— William Stafford

I heard a bird congratulating itself all day for being a jay. Nobody cared. But it was glad all over again, and said so,…

— William Stafford

The earth says have a place, be what that place requires; hear the sound the birds imply and see as deep as ridges go…

— William Stafford

You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen.

— William Stafford